Question of the Week 5

Featured answer

The reactions provided by experts (which can be found below) show that policies aimed at improving the conditions of smallholder farmers can take a variety of approaches. This variety is reflected in the overview provided here, with recommendations added from several earlier INCLUDE contributions. As outlined by Tekleselassie, the main way to improve the condition of smallholder farmers is to increase their agricultural productivity. Although prioritizing suggestions is beyond the scope of INCLUDE as a knowledge platform, the overview provided... read more »

The reactions provided by experts (which can be found below) show that policies aimed at improving the conditions of smallholder farmers can take a variety of approaches. This variety is reflected in the overview provided here, with recommendations added from several earlier INCLUDE contributions. As outlined by Tekleselassie, the main way to improve the condition of smallholder farmers is to increase their agricultural productivity. Although prioritizing suggestions is beyond the scope of INCLUDE as a knowledge platform, the overview provided here, which is based on expert opinion, contains clear focus areas.

This overview is based on three categories of investment.. The first category is new or increased investment, which includes investment in improving access to technologies. The second is investment in honing existing policies. The final category is investment in policy directions that are interrelated with other policies and, therefore, require a comprehensive approach. For instance, factors such as increasing access to land and providing opportunities for women (see e.g. Melle Leenstra’s expert contribution) require policies to be formulated within a broader political framework than smallholder farming.

This categorization of investment is in itself problematic, as new or increased investments are embedded in wider political contexts and should not be confused with ‘apolitical instruments’. Rather, they should be interpreted as investments that have the most immediate potential in .

Three sets of investment

New or increased investment

New or increased investment should aim at benefiting smallholder farmers by:

Increasing access to skills training programmes, both agricultural and entrepreneurial

Facilitating access to credit and linking smallholder farmers with financial service providers

Providing smallholder farmers with access to inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, storage facilities, irrigation, ICTs, information and other technologies to enhance their productivity

Increasing investment in basic infrastructure (such as roads) in rural areas to create a level playing field

Clustering farmer support mechanisms and promoting connections between smallholders and their peers

Promoting the public procurement of (organic) food produced by small and family farmers

Developing safety nets for smallholder farmers or improving their access to existing ones

Focus areas in existing policies

In terms of existing policies, there are certain areas that investment should focus on to improve the condition of smallholder farmers:

Although agriculture accounts for a large share of production in Africa, macro-policies should take a broader view and aim to diversify and improve efficiency and access along the value chain.

Policies improving access to inputs and benefits should employ a gender lens. As women play a key role in (equitable) agricultural growth, the constraints hampering them from accessing land and credit need to be removed.

Water and land management policies need to use rotation schedules to enhance access and fertility and land entitlement programmes need to incentivize intergenerational transfers.

Quality standards should be aligned and allow space for smallholders. This includes reducing the number of certifications.

Changing narratives and policy directions

Some policies are interrelated investment in these policies requires a comprehensive approach:

Open to debate is the narrative about industrial, high-input farming and its upscaling. Proponents of ‘agroecology’ suggest that the latter is more sustainable and inclusive. In line with this debate is the question of whether or not smallholder farmers should ‘move out’, if they do not ‘move up’, to release land for large-scale agriculture.

Smallholder farmers should be recognized as important actors in macro-development policies, as they are more exposed to vulnerabilities as a result of integrated international commodity markets. In addition, they are often seen as beneficiaries, but seldom as key partners, in decision-making processes.

Allowing processing and value addition to take place in the country of origin creates more opportunities for small businesses and enables the better integration of smallholder farmers within the value chain.

Taxation should be used to better reflect the real costs (including social and environmental externalities) in selling prices.

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Reactions (12)

Niels Louwaars
- Plantum2016-08-2 15:23

access to markets is the basis in my view (purely subsistence farming – without off-farm employment – is too risky and not sustainable)

Investment in sustainable landscape approach for towards promoting best practices for land and water resources use, climate change adaption and mitigation, biodiversity conservation and empowerment of local communities for improving food security, income and developing resilient livelihoods of the smallholders. The landscape approach need to take into consideration for developing robust infrastructure for creating access to resources, services, quality of inputs and financial capital. This also includes investment in ICT to access to informatio... n, technologies and promotion of diversified, market oriented, climate smart and sustainable agriculture to optimize farmers' social, environmental and economic performances.
Investment in strengthening the supply chain efficiency for improved farm practices, food safety management, trace-ability and governance for developing inclusive supply chains at the domestic and international markets.

Investment in developing coherent and consistent cluster based farmers support mechanisms through provision of extension services, education and training. Contractual arrangement and responsible sourcing is needed so that the smallholders can sell their farm produces to the buyers and exporters.

Increasing organic matter content in the soil together with water harvesting techniques, mulching and landscape management techniques are the most effective ways of increasing the productivity and resilience of small-scale family farms. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i2953e.pdf

Every technical investment must be accompanied by an investment in the cocreation of knowledge and skills by small-scale farmers (F+M), scientists and other key actors. Link: http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/mag... azines/global/co-creation-of-knowledge

What has not been mentioned so far is rural infrastructure. From what I have gathered over the years working on land and farming infrastructure like roads, irrigation and possibilties for food storage are among the most important investment oppotunities, in particular from the perspective of smallholder farmers.

Issues like credit or the labelling of products are secondary if there is no transport infrastructure. Credit to individual farmers will not be spent on building roads. Market access again is only part of the solution as long as prod... ucts cannot be stored long enough to be collected and brought to whatever kind of market there is, be it an actual physical market or a wholesaler etc. Additionally, small farmers who also farm to supplement their own food supply need storage opportunities and one solution to that could be centralized storage units for larger communities, where perishable products can be stored (just one example where investment can be directed at). And then irrigation, without sustainable irrigation networks and water storage facilities credits and seeds are also only helpful to a very limited extent in many cases. There seems to be a very strong idea in academic communities as well as among practitioners that the foremost goal regarding agricultural development should be to scale up production because it is believed that small scale farming is in itself unsustainable. But in my view there has rarely been the basic and most necessary infrastructure on a comprehensive scale (of course exemptions apply) in most so called developing countries, which would have been necessary to make small scale farming work (then again there is also the question of who does it work for? The producers, who might want to be 'food sovereign' in addiotion to monetary objectives or political and economic actors who primarily want to increase exports and revenue?). So as the basis of promoting agricultural growth and farmer income investment is needed in infrastructure, particularly: roads, storage and irrigation.read more »

PS. Somehow is couldn’t see Agniezka’s and Selim’s answers who go in a very similar direction of what I have posted, while Selim’s input particularly goes beyond that, which I find very interesting. Even though I would stick to the argument that the three primary investment areas should be roads, irrigation and storage, while I think that the sustainable landscape approach goes beyond such ‘basic’ measures.

-First of all it is important for SME farmers to treat their farming as a business: measuring, recording and monitoring productivity and profitability. This should be the starting point for investing in appropriate technologies targeting their binding constraints.

-Second it is important for SME farmers to invest in the skills needed for farming as a business. Search out and weigh good advice from successful peers, extention officers, media and private se... ctor advisors. Expect farmer to pay for trainings for themselves or for farm managers or workers, providing that those trainings offer return for investment.

-Finally it is important for SME farmers to invest in their land (their second most important asset after human resource). Apply appropriate organic and chemical fertiliser to reverse nutrient mining. Follow a rotiation schedule that makes agronomic and marketing sense. In addition, engage in sucession planning, so that the next generation in the family farm will further grow the farming enterprise rather than split it up into uneconomical plots.read more »

I have the community in Ethiopia in mind when writing this:
1- Training. Focused, repeated, purposeful training for farmers in the techniques of agroecology. This MUST be followed with financial support to implement what they were trained for. The financial support may not be hand-out but it can take so many forms.
2- For those farmers hooked into high input or industrial agriculture and interested to change, support for transition. This can take many forms including meeting their livelihood goals.
3- Diversification. Should be contextu... al. This can cushion the challenge of transformation to agroecology.
4- The big investment should be in changing the narrative. The narrative for industrial/ high input is so powerful and ingrained. Governments should be convinced to allocate money to agroecology.

– Training and technical support for small scale farmers on how to enhance productivity of ecological farming at small scale and the social and economic advantages of being engaged in ecological farming

– Promotion of organic natural food for healthy people

– Diversification of farm products so as to secure increased return for farmers from their small land holdings

Thank you for your many, and diverse, contributions. It is good to see that not only there are many angles used to answer this question, but also to see them based within research performed by your organisations. As you may have read within the 'Featured answer': in compiling an answer to the question, the INCLUDE secretariat has used your various contributions to formulated concrete policy suggestions in different categories. These categories include investments that can be implemented directly, investments that require a ... specific focus within existing policies, and investments that require a different narrative within development policies. The secretariat will pass this answer on to members of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as input for their strategy on small-scale agriculture.

This could all not have been possible without your contributions. Therefore, we would like to thank all of you once again and we hope to welcome you back on our knowledge forum soon. Please be reminded that this is an ongoing discussion: contributions are still welcome.